Murdock's Sanity
by Dr Spleenmeister
Summary: Murdock breaks through his shroud of madness for a moment of lucidity and dwells on how it should have been him, not Face, in command in the POW camp when Hannibal was taken, and how the nightmares that torment Face should be his.


It was dark in the team's digs for the night, which suited the one conscious person in the room right down to the ground. Sitting cross-legged on his bed he watched his friend struggle in the grip of a nightmare. The nightmares had been extremely few and far between in the past couple of years which helped to alleviate the watcher's guilt somewhat, but it didn't change the fact that had he not been so selfish they wouldn't be happening at all.

The Vietnamese POW camp had been an indescribable Hell the likes of which he would never wish on his worst enemies. He had been beaten, tortured, starved, half emaciated by the time they escaped and he had been one of the lucky ones. Too many men had died in that place and not a day went past that he didn't question whether he would have been able to reduce the number of fatalities had he managed to retain his wits.

His fingers itched to reach for the stuffed toy resting innocently on the bedside table, part of him wanted to cling tightly to the safety it represented while the other part of him wanted to rip it to pieces for the cowardice it equally embodied. Resisting the urge to hide or destroy he instead fingered the dog tags dangling from his neck, his lips twisting as an index finger passed over the carefully carved nicks in the edge of one; those nicks were his reminder of what he owed to every innocent person he could help, it was the number of men in their platoon that had died in the camp.

He watched stoney-faced as his closest friend started to mumble snatches of Vietnamese in his sleep: _không, sų, vui_, the three most basic pleas of a man being tortured.

No, stop, please.

Rising silently from his perch, the tall officer moved to his friend's side and laid a hand on his brow, gently soothing the nightmares away until the younger man settled and the lines of tension smoothed away from his face. Returning to his bed, he stretched out on his back and stared up at the ceiling, content that the nightmares had passed for the moment at least and knowing that it was fruitless to try and get back to sleep; his guilt would not let him.

They had been apprehended about a day after being shot down over the jungle, ordinarily they could have evaded capture with relative ease but Hannibal and B.A. had been injured and there was no way they were being left behind. Once they were taken to the Vietnamese prison camp a pattern quickly emerged: Hannibal, as the ranking officer, would be taken for questioning daily and B.A. was forced to work on the VC's damaged machinery on pain of the death of his comrades, Face and Murdock had been left in the caged pit with the rest of the prisoners. Procedure dictated that the ranking officer take charge, in Hannibal's absence the ranking officer was Murdock, but Murdock was no green beret; give him a fleet of planes or choppers and he could take the place of the General Of The Air Force without breaking a sweat, but on the ground he was like a bird whose wings had been clipped. Oh he had tried, in true Hannibal style he marshaled the men who were strong enough together to try and plan an escape, but once the guards figured out what he was up to they had him removed and extensively tortured. To his credit he didn't tell them the plans they had laid - the very same plans that would eventually get them out under the command of a more capable ground leader - but the pressure of being responsible for the lives of so many defeated men, men who were pinning all the hopes of their very existence on him, combined with the extensive and repeated torture from Charlie, his mind cracked. When they tossed his broken body back into the pit and the men gathered round him, terror on their faces at his state, he gave in to the stress. It had been the strangest sensation, like something tearing softly inside his head and suddenly the pain didn't seem quite so bad; he had smiled up at the terrified faces looming over him, his left arm twisted at an impossible angle and asked brightly when it was going to be time for them to play hopscotch. The men had frowned down at him, at each other and finally at the next in line for command: the far-too-young Lieutenant Templeton Peck who, in the absence of the Captain's sanity, was left to take charge.

Face had done an admirable job in taking care of the men and of Murdock, but their guards were vultures and soon noticed that the chain of command had shifted. Soon enough it was the Faceman who was hauled away for interrogation, he, however had been better trained than their pilot to deal with the situation they were in and was able to not only keep his head throughout but managed to get in a few insults to their captors as well. Naturally this resulted in torture techniques much more creative than that Murdock had sustained and by the time Face had managed to stage the escape he was severely injured and traumatised.

Once they got back to civilisation they were all treated for their wounds and Murdock was given a thorough work-over by the Army psychiatrists but Face was such a good con man that he had managed to convince the psychiatrists he was fine, even though the reality was far from it. They had headed back to America, deftly dodging arrest for the Hanoi cock-up and set themselves up as soldiers of fortune, Face convincing them all that he was fine, better than fine, splendid.

Murdock had seen through the ploy as soon as he had regained his senses enough to know when to whip out the crazy card and when to force himself into lucidity. Face wore his mask extremely well but Murdock could see his own inner torment reflected in his friend's eyes in unguarded moments or when they were alone together. One time during visiting hours at the VA Face had been sitting with Murdock in his room, indulging him by petting his invisible dog when Murdock had suddenly stopped, locked clear, sane eyes on him and murmured,

"I should have helped."

If Face was startled by the sudden removal of Crazy!Murdock he didn't show it, he knew exactly what he was referring to, "You couldn't, Man." he went back to petting the dog, "You were too far gone."

Murdock's face had pinched and a muscle by his eye twitched, "I knew what was happening and I knew exactly how I could help, I... I just..." a tear slipped unchecked down his cheek, "I couldn't... get out of my own head." He took Face's hand so tightly in his own that Face felt his bones creak, "It should have been me getting the crap beat out of me every day, not you; I was the ranking officer."

Face's mask slipped and his eyes stung at Murdock's words. He squeezed the hand that tightly clasped his, and hissed, his voice full of a fury Murdock had never heard from him before, "They broke you, Murdock, I had to let them take me, otherwise I would have gotten us all killed trying to rip that cage apart with my bare hands."

Murdock swallowed, "Face, if you hadn't been there..."

"Then you would have been tortured until you were dead. I know what happened, Murdock; your mind let you escape within yourself because it knew I was there to support you and the others."

Rage had seared through him, "DAMN IT, FACE, IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ME!!"

Blinking at the uncharacteristic outburst, Face had smirked weakly, "I can't believe we're fighting over who should have gotten all the fun."

Murdock blinked then grinned brilliantly, "Hey, Face, you wanna take Billy for a walk?"

Face had looked deep into his friend's eyes, either the moment of lucidity had passed or Murdock was an even better actor than he was. Letting his own mask slip back into place he smiled widely, "Sure, Murdock, sure."

Lying on his bed, Murdock let his head roll to the side as he heard Face stir, blue eyes met his, glowing in the moonlight filtering into the room. Murdock smiled tightly as he met his gaze and Face could tell immediately that his friend was having a painfully sane moment and had been for quite some time if the tears shining unshed in his eyes were anything to go by. Reaching out into the space between them he smiled reassuringly as Murdock reached out too and their hands met firmly in the space between them.

Face whispered into the darkness, "Hey, I'm fine, it was a long time ago, we got out alive, that's all that matters."

Murdock's smile slipped and he suddenly looked extremely young and vulnerable, "Yeah. Look, Face-" he was cut off by another, rather large hand joining theirs and B.A.'s voice rumbled quietly from the other end of the attached arm,

"Without you lasting as long as you did we'd all be dead, Man."

A fourth hand joined the collection and Hannibal murmured softly, "No-one blames you, Murdock, if we did you wouldn't be with us now."

Murdock's voice was barely audible in the still night air, "I just wish I hadn't abandoned you to cope with everything on your own, Tem."

Face's intake of breath was deceptively slow, Murdock almost never called him by his real name and his fingers flexed around his brother's, "You didn't. You were the reason I was able to bust us all out, we had no idea if B.A. and Hannibal were still alive once they were taken and if I had been in there on my own with the rest of the platoon I probably wouldn't have tried so hard to get out. I was hurt pretty badly in the crash and honestly I could have given up so easily but I had to get you out of there." His voice hardened, "They could do what they liked to me but there was no way in Hell they were getting away with what they did to you."

Murdock's voice was choked as he replied, "I...I didn't know..."

Face chuckled mirthlessly, "Of course you didn't, that's why they call me 'Face'."

Hannibal audibly swallowed in the dark before speaking, "When they took me for questioning the last time, they threw me in an underground cage and told me you'd all been shot. my training was screaming at me to keep thinking, to try to escape, but all I wanted to do was roll over and give up; Face's prison break came in the nick of time."

Face's voice was soft, "It was you that got us out, Murdock. My head was so scrambled from the torture that I could barely think straight; if you hadn't laid the plans when you did we never would have gotten out."

There was a long moment of silence, then Murdock's voice, sounding small and timid, said, "I think it's time for me to stop being crazy now."

"NO!" The urgency of B.A.'s retort startled them all and they all turned to stare at him in the dark, "You may be a crazy fool, Murdock, but you're a crazy fool who got us out of more scrapes than I can count. What happened in 'Nam was bad, real bad, but it made you who you are; don't go changin' who you are, Man."

Slowly, painfully slowly, the agony and guilt smoothed from Murdock's face and he smiled, "Thanks, Guys." He twitched suddenly and grinned until his teeth shone in the moonlight, "Billy!?" He bolted upright and looked down at his feet at the other end of the bed, "Is that you, Boy?" Hopping up into a crouch he dove out of sight over the end of the bed and could be heard scrambling around on the floor.

The remaining three men exchanged meaningful gazes; he'd be fine and at least they finally had an answer as to whether the madness was an act or not. A loud thump and the sound of a body hitting the floor made them jump; Murdock had head-butted the wall in his excitement and knocked himself out.

Maybe that answer wasn't quite so clear after all.

**FIN**


End file.
